Okay, ready?  I’m about to encapsulate the entirety of Life into 2 stages:

1. We embark on a journey of self-discovery and discovery of the world — asking questions, arriving at answers through our experiences of failure and success, trials and triumphs.  We encounter teachers of various stripes, systems & communities & organizations that serve us with both nurturing and destruction.  We gather knowledge and understanding along the way until at last we find that we have a pretty decent sense of who we are and what the world is and how it all works together.  We are self-actualized.  Ta da!
2. We stick with this self-identified actualization, once and for all, insisting upon it and perpetuating it for the rest of our lives.  We plaster our new-found selves onto the canvas of life, preemptively deciding who we will be and how we will show up now and forever.
   OR
   We recognize that stage 1 was really just the beginning, a preparation for an ever-unfolding experience of who we are and who we can be — the beginning of our communion with more mystery and magic, with our own freedom to choose and create anew in it.

If we greet life with a battering ram of our own certainties and expectations, listening mainly to the echoes contained within the shell of our self-assured identity, then someone’s going to get bruised, probably us, and that’s not much fun.  

If, however, we meet the world with a willingness to examine our own prejudices and biases, remembering that all we think we know is just a glimmer of infinite Truth, then we have an opportunity to fall ever more deeply and completely into Love and Wisdom.

There is an empty canvas, a tabula rasa, before us.  We can fill this blank habitually, with more of everything that’s come before, rigidly clinging to what we’ve already defined.  Or we could color it with something wondrously new.  Or perhaps… who knows?  Maybe we don’t really have to fill it at all — what if we simply frolicked into the empty spaces to play together?

I JUST LAUGH, by Kabir

If I told you the truth about God,
you might think I was an
idiot.

If I lied to you about the Beautiful One
you might parade me through the streets shouting,
“This guy is a genius!”

This world has its pants on backwards.
Most carry their values and knowledge in a jug
that has a big hole in it.

Thus having a clear grasp of the situation
if I am asked anything these days
I just laugh!

I can’t wait to be with you, friends.  Happy Spring!  XO, Drew

© 2018 Drew Groves